Genevieve  0:00  

Welcome to I Could Never… A podcast about non monogamy and the many ways it can look. I'm Genevieve from Chill Polyamory on Instagram, Tiktok and YouTube, and I'm joined, as always, by my co-host and partner, Ishik.

Ishik  0:18  

Yes, I'm ishik. I'm here, and I am a grown adult man who definitely didn't burn his hand on a stone. 

Genevieve  0:28  

Well, sometimes we gotta learn that lesson again. 

Ishik  0:30  

You know, it only takes 35 years. Well, I am, that aside, excited to share that today, we have joining us, Ashtin Berry, aka the Collectress. She is a writer, sommelier, hospitality consultant and activist focusing on intersectionality and inclusivity in the spaces where we gather. Ashton, thank you so much for being here today. Thank you for having me. I'm super excited, but before that, we have to go to a thing that doesn't burn us when we touch it. Our favorite segment, Vibe or Vent.

Genevieve  1:03  

It's Vibe or vent time. For anyone listening for the first time, we always like to start off the show with a little icebreaker called vibe or vent, where we'll each take a beat to share about something that's either really making us happy recently or something that sucks that we need to get off our chest. So Ishik, would you like to start us out?

Ishik  1:20  

Yes, yes, I am going to vent today, and it has nothing to do with being burned, um, except by our socio political media landscape.

Genevieve  1:31  

Jump into it, yeah. I mean, that's what we do here.

Ishik  1:35  

So a little bit of context, uh, timing wise, we're like, a week or so off, little less, actually, a few days past the arrest of Luigi Mangione, for anyone who somehow doesn't know, allegedly this, this man shot a healthcare CEO. And the response from the media and from the government was insane, right? There was just like massive manhunt nationwide to, like, try to find this guy. And it was just so fucking appalling, because I was looking at this that's earlier, at some point, there's, like, at least 60 gun murders a day in the United States. Where's the more? Where's the nationwide manhunt for them. You know? Where's the massive media coverage for them? And so like these huge machines like kick into action when a rich or powerful person is it dies or is harmed, just so much money and energy and time and attention being devoted to them. But for the mass is nothing. It was really it's just fucking, it's still sitting with me. It's still really disgusting. I've been wanting to share about it for days. And you know, this is where I get to vent. So I'm venting about that. It's, yeah, it sucks, yeah. 

Genevieve  2:52  

And having it just reinforced so plainly, of like, who is important in this current structure? Yeah, it's like, such a reminder, in a way that's pretty sobering.

Ashtin Berry  3:03  

Yeah, I just want to respond to what you were saying, because I had a lot of people DM me to be like, you know, how could you be in defense of murder? And I encourage you to go look up the history of how health insurance companies even came about. You want to talk about ghoulish you want to talk about something that is frightening, and that's the one who is a black American, and is this in his, you know, descended from slaves. And I know people are like, oh, when people bring this up, but how would I be here if no one ever revolted, right? How would I be here if, if no one ever killed their master. So yeah, and I also think that in real time, I think it's going to be really interesting for white people in America with the coming in of this presidency. Watch someone, uh, who is from a group that has been newly inducted into whiteness be D, white. D whiteified in real time. Even when they started the man, they called him a light skinned man.

Ishik  4:06  

Yeah, I remember that shit in the press conference.

Ashtin Berry  4:09  

And I said to people, I said that is a nod to tell you that he is not white. Uh huh. That was the first indicator that they wanted you to associate this man as not white. So I think, you know, not take over your Vim, but I think that it's going to be, I think it's going to be really interesting. And I think, um, just go look at why we have health insurance insurance companies. 

Genevieve  4:32  

Yeah, if you want to have a bad time and educate yourself and educate yourself, go down that rabbit hole.

Ishik  4:42  

Well, well, now that let's wrap up this vent. I will throw it to you. Ashtin, are you vibing? Are you venting today?

Ashtin Berry  4:48  

Uh, am I vibing or venting? I don't know if it's a vibe or a vent, but I've been thinking a lot this week about this idea of convening. And ease. I did a story the other day that people have been like, Oh my gosh. Could you talk more about this, about the connection between pity and charity, and why pity is not a sustainable, activating emotion, but also why how charity is about convenience, how pity is also an emotion of convenience. I feel sorry for you, right, because I don't have to go deeper, right, but I get to feel good about myself because at least I acknowledge that I knew you were mistreated, but I can move on right, because that's convenient for me to say I see it and move on right, not to see it and ask questions or to try and comfort so I've just been thinking a lot about that, and allow so many people claim they want community but commit themselves to emotions that are risk averse. You know, emotions that are very shallow.

Genevieve  5:58  

Yeah, pity is very distancing. It's not empathy, right? Yeah, right.

Ishik  6:04  

You touched on so many things that I have explicit questions written about. I'm so excited to dive into that shit. So we're gonna get back to that later, but for now, okay, thank you. Genevieve, wrap this up.

Genevieve  6:15  

Yeah, okay, well, I wasn't sure if I should vibe or events. We're recording this prior to Christmas, and a lot of listeners might know, like, about a year and a half ago, I went no contact with the rest of my family of origin, and so I'm sort of like vibing, in a sense of creating new tradition from nothing. On the other end, there's also like this dark underside of it, of just like grief and pain, but also Christmas often felt hollow growing up for me, just because I was like, well, the rest of the year though, you're like, neglectful or abusive, you know, in the month of December, for a video essay, I'm gonna be talking about, you know, Hallmark Christmas movies like but it's hard sometimes, because the premise of a lot of these Christmas movies is that people like, it's expected people just want to go back to a small town and tradition, and that it's expected that everybody involved has, like, nostalgia for when they were a child in Christmas. And I'm like, I don't want to go back to being a kid, like.

Ashtin Berry  7:21  

Well, that's the mythology. It'll all work out with Christmas magic. It'll all work out.

Genevieve  7:31  

And I, like I said, love looking ahead at all of the people around that I'm like, I genuinely do enjoy your company. And this actually is a really warm, loving Christmas this time, because we made it ourselves in adulthood. So, like, that's nice anyway, yeah.

Ishik  7:47  

I think, I think we're feeling a little better. Um, I think this is a perfect time to jump into conversations about non monogamy. So love to talk to you. Ashtin, can you tell us a little bit about what your relationships look like. Yeah, tell us about it. 

Ashtin Berry  8:03  

I one of the things I do, whether it's for romantic or other relationships, is I'm really committed to relationship anarchy, because I think we do too much assuming, assuming that people know our desires, our needs. There's a lot of, specifically in Western culture period, there's a lot of like implied, you should know these things and what I need, but again, those are based off of not that individual. It's based off a larger societal norm. And so what I like about relationship anarchy is it asks us to come back to the individual person and to be explicit in this way that like is really caring, because a lot of people have never been asked, What do you need outside of crisis?

Speaker 1  8:52  

So what initially drew you to relationship anarchy?

Ashtin Berry  8:58  

After getting out of a relationship, being pissed. And I was like, yeah, it's got to be something different out there. I'm so sick of this shit

Ishik  9:10  

Wait really quick. What was, what was the relationship and what? Why were you so pissed?

Ashtin Berry  9:14  

I was pissed because it was, once again, a man saying they wanted me when what they actually wanted was domination. They wanted to conquer. And I was like, it's just so first of all, it's just so boring. Get a new thing, you know, just so boring. But also, it's also frustrating to hear men say that they want non traditional women, and then once they get you tried to do all of the labor to be like, Okay, now do the traditional thing. 

Genevieve  9:47  

Yeah, it's almost like a bait and switch. 

Ashtin Berry  9:49  

Yeah, it's, it's, I hate it. I hate it so much. That's why I was, I was pissed, right? That's kind of how, like, I stumbled into relationship anarchy, and then, like. I don't know that I've ever explicitly stated that I adhere to non monogamy, but that I'm, like, less concerned about how I define it, more concerned about how I relate to people, if that makes sense.

Ishik  10:11  

So just getting a bit more into relationship anarchy for you. Can you tell us about how it works for you, and maybe a bit about why it works for you?

Ashtin Berry  10:25  

I think relationship anarchy is just about taking out the hierarchy of relationships. You cannot take out the power dynamics, because those are said about by society, but you can mitigate how societal power dynamics influence your relationship by explicitly calling attention to them and negotiating about how you relate to one another, changing being authentic about what you need and what you want, not what people expect or think you should want and need, and then, like, I think, redefining what success for a relationship, because Everything we're told is that if the relationship isn't this this way, then it didn't succeed. And I think I would also say the biggest thing that I've learned is to look at failure as an invitation, and if time spent when people was well loved, there was no failure.

Genevieve  11:19  

Yeah, not defining the parting of a relationship or the distancing of a connection as a failure, but just was the time worth it?

Ashtin Berry  11:26  

Or a change in a relationship. You know what I mean? 

Ishik  11:29  

Yeah, I would also love to hear kind of in a little bit more specificity, to the degree that you're comfortable sharing, like relationships where you have a lot of closeness, intimacy, maybe sex, maybe not. Can you? Can you give a sense of what some of those relationships kind of look like, like currently for you?

Ashtin Berry  11:49  

Yeah, I think they look different because many of the people I'm engaged in relationship with don't actually live in the same city as me, which wasn't intentional, but I prefer it right. So in the past. I used to live between here, New Orleans and New York, that two places. And so I would split my month, kind of two weeks, two weeks, sometimes month month. I was dating someone in New York, but they traveled for work, and so we had to even with me, kind of like having a place in New York and being there. I think that was one of the first relationships where I was like, we have to talk about pacing and time, because it can't be an assumption that when you're in New York, my time is automatically always yours, just because you travel. And it can't be this assumption that, like my time in New York should revolve solely around you. You should be one of the things in the solar system, but you should not be the soul thing. So, I mean, I think for me, it looks like having explicit agreements about when we do see each other and the frequency with which we see each other. I mean, I actually send forms. So when I'm saying, like, explicit discussions, I'm not saying like, Oh hey. Like, how do you like? No, I'm sending you these questions. I want you to answer them and think about them, and I want you to send them back for me, to me, so that we can engage in an explicit discussion about these things, not a haphazard off the top of our brain, right? I want you to be intentional about the way that you're coming to this discussion. I want to be intentional about the way that I'm coming to this discussion. Does that answer it? 

Ishik  13:21  

Well, yeah, that's, I love that. You know, talking about this form, I'm super interested to hear about this form. That's like a form, you say, a questionnaire. I like forms. What kinds of things are on it?

Ashtin Berry  13:33  

Um, it started actually, as a friend form that I made with a girlfriend of mine because we have not lived in the same, on the same continent for her about almost a decade now, and you know, we were just finding it really difficult to stay in touch. And so I and so I made a form that was constructed of about five to seven questions, I think, when it began, and it was like, is it that you don't have time, or does making time feel stressful? Why does making time feel stressful? Is it about what we talk about? Is it about the way we catch up? Or maybe it has nothing to do with me. Is it about Blah? Blah? So it started off kind of like that with me and her, and she was like, Oh, those questions were really helpful, because it made me realize like it was overwhelming to try to catch up on everything we missed, right? I think some people can relate to having catch up friends, and that's a very exhausting relationship, right? Because it's a it's a reality distortion. What's happening is that, like you're trying to catch up on a such an expansive amount of time that's passed in such a short period that you're not actually engaged in any type of intimate, transmit, emotional transmission. You're just logging lost time so you don't leave the conversation feeling fulfilled. You leave the conversation feeling I still didn't get what I needed, and over time, that becomes more. More frustrating. So that's not about forms, but that's kind of how I got there, and then I was dating someone, and they i We had very different communication styles, which people don't really talk about in relationship, how you can both be talking and you can't hear each other, and it's not because anybody's a poor listener or a poor communicator. You just simply communicate very differently. And that the form that I use a romantic partners kind of came from engaging with him and us having issues of not being able to actually get ever get to what we were trying to say to one another. It kind of built out from there. And I want to be clear with everybody, it's not like after every date I'm sending a form or after everything like that. It's more so like at pivotal moments of when I see there's a shift in the relationship. If I go on the first day and I think, Wow, this is someone I could build something with. I want to send the form, because I'm already changing the way that I'm thinking about relating to them, right? It's not for every single person. If I don't really see us having anything, I'm not sending you a form, right? The form is kind of like a tell of investment. Does that make sense?

Genevieve  16:17  

Yeah, yeah. That's lovely. I think, I think a lot of people wind up getting to that place in check ins, even though it might not be written down for most people, it's sort of streamlining it, you know, yeah, that's lovely. 

Ishik  16:32  

Now, I can imagine when the premise of bringing somebody a form, especially after, like, a first date, right? That I can imagine people who would absolutely love that and eat that shit up, and that's like their jam. And I can imagine people who would have a very bad reaction to that, right? And so, yeah, so I would love to hear what the typical reaction you get from people is.

Ashtin Berry  16:54  

So I think it's all about the level set. What I've learned is you can't just spring it on people and be like, hey, I want you to fill this out, right? Because then people won't do it. I think you gotta, like, really explain to people the type of person you are and, like, the type of relationship you want to have. And I think that that really kind of perhaps people, right, so that they don't feel like they're no one wants to feel like they're taking a test, right? So when I first started this, I got really bad reactions, especially because at the time, I was dating two older men, one of them literally called me and was like, why the fuck you sending me a test? I was like, it's not a test. Like, there's no right or wrong answer. I'm not testing you. I want to understand these things. He was like, No. Hate this file. Said, No, I'm not doing it. Um, once he got to know me like better, he was like, I think most people are untrusting. So they, they they it's hard for them to believe that you're not doing this for some other ulterior motive. And I think specifically, because I have a Instagram that people sometimes fear that they're going to be used for content, and so I always have to, that's why I think the level set is really important to explain that, like, this isn't for any type of performance. I'm not going to use this for content. This isn't so that I can, like, show your page just, you know what I mean, like, it's really about us. But also what I like is, I like the documentation of being able to go back in different passages of the relationship, to be able to review growth. I know some people would think like, Oh, does that take out the mystery or the fun of it? No, I think it actually adds to it, right? I think people who are uninterested in trying to make their relationship look like a performance, but actually be present in it, enjoy the fact that they are being engaged in a way that allows them to be fully heard. If that makes sense.

Genevieve  19:03  

It’s really thoughtful, like every part of it is thoughtful, shifting gears a little bit. We often like to ask guests, what's something that they wish they learned earlier in exploring non traditional relationships? Is there something that comes to mind for you or something that you would want to tell people who are just starting out.

Ashtin Berry  19:22  

I think a few things that I wish that I learned earlier is that you've gotta pace yourself into new practices. You know, even if you switched within your mind or intellectually, doesn't mean the body has shifted from patterns that you remember. And so, you know, remember to be kind to yourself, but remember to be kind to the other people who are also trying. 

Ishik  19:44  

Yeah, right. Can you Is there a specific experience that you can recall where that happened, where you had, like, started to change? Maybe your ideas about something, but your body hadn't quite caught up yet?

Ashtin Berry  19:55  

Yeah, having sex with more than one person. Mm. Ongoing. You know what I mean? Like, I was like, in my mind, I could say all the reasons why I was engaging ethically and everything like that, but my body was uncomfortable with it, and I had to, like, take a moment pause and stop to figure out what that was about, because there's no point in engaging in sex and then feel guilty afterwards.

Genevieve  20:20  

Something that people will ask me is like, well, if you have discomfort, why are you doing it? Do you ever get that question? Or is that ever a question that you've asked yourself?

Ashtin Berry  20:27  

I definitely asked myself that question. And I think, like for me, I had to I think it's one thing to have discomfort. I think it's another thing to have guilt. I think for me, it's, it's asking, Where's the discomfort coming from, right? But, yeah, I mean, I, you know, one of the people I was dating was like, I'm don't have an issue. So, like, why are you so hung up on it? Why do you feel so bad about it? And I had to, kind of, like, unpack a lot of things that I didn't realize I was holding on to, which are, like, societal teachings about kind of like, you're supposed to treat your body like this and things like that. So I had to unpack that, but like, yeah. And then afterwards, it was about getting past the discomfort, right? But also, like, pausing to, like, stop guilt in his traps and be like, we're not going to do that.

Genevieve  21:22  

Yeah. And was your partner saying, like, Why? Why are you feeling like, this? Is that a moment when you were hoping for some more kindness at yourself in the process of saying that?

Ashtin Berry  21:34  

He was like, very he was like, kind, like, I'm sure, Andy, like, he was kind like, he was like, very much, like, you know, like, what you know, tell me, like, what you're thinking. Like, what do you do you think I have, like, I'm making opinions about you. Do you think I have liked it like, you know, he was, but I think he was more kind of trying to get me to be more honest, because I think he felt as if I was giving him superficial answers.

Genevieve  22:00  

So he was sincerely, like, exploring that with you, not saying that out of frustration. 

Ashtin Berry  22:06  

No, he wasn't saying it out of frustration. He was he was genuinely trying to figure out, what is it that is catching you up?

Ishik  22:14  

Looking back now, you know you're saying that your perspective was that he thought you were giving kind of superficial answers. Do you feel like you were giving superficial answers at first?

Ashtin Berry  22:25  

I think I didn't know enough about what I was feeling to give him a deeper answer. I but I think his continued questioning made me dig deeper than just giving like a well, I just feel bad. I feel, I feel, you know what I mean? Like, you know him pushing to be like, Okay, but why? 

Ishik  22:45  

It's not just I feel bad, it's like, well, but what specifically feels bad, right?

Ashtin Berry  22:50  

Yeah. And I think, I think sometimes, like, when you are in a emotion, it's more it can be more difficult to actually review all of it, because you're still actually in the emotion. So you can't really describe it, because you're still in the process of feeling it, and you know, but his questioning made me kind of eventually realize that I didn't feel bad. What I felt was guilty, and then I had to answer myself, Why do I feel guilty? 

Genevieve  23:16  

Yeah, pulling at that thread, I think that's such a good distinction of like, understanding where it's coming from, and then do you, like your own answer of why you would either push forward or say that's not something I want to do, and I'm leaving.

Ashtin Berry  23:29  

You know, I had to pause, because if your body is fighting you on something, then you've gotta pause, regardless of what you know in your head, If your body is locking up after, like, even if you're incapable of having sex or whatever it may be, and then afterwards, your body is locking up and having a visceral reaction. That means your body hasn't caught up to your mind. Relationships are an embodied practice, and so, which a lot of people don't think of it like that. And so I had to tell both of them, like, hey, I need a pause for a minute, just because. And it wasn't like I was like, oh, I need months away, or did it up, but I was like, I just actually need maybe a couple of weeks I'm not seeing either of you to kind of just figure out what's going on with me and my body. And I want to be clear, it's not like I've never had sex with more than one person before, but it was that I was having I was doing more than just having sex. I was engaged in romantic relationship with more than one person. And so my body was like, you're 2728 I don't know, shifting to this new thing. And we've been doing something different for 28 years, and my body hadn't quite understood what that meant.

Genevieve  24:44  

Is there a way that you're that the people in your life were supporting you during that time that really helped? 

Ashtin Berry  24:52  

No. People were like, what the hell are you doing? Like, well, if it doesn't feel good, why do you come to. You to do this. A lot of people were thought it was like my relationship anarchy was like a phase. It's still like the way I approach my relationship is still really difficult to talk about with, specifically heterosexual women committed to monogamy. But that doesn't surprise me, because, like so much of what I focus on in relationships is far away from like people who want marriage and children. So like that doesn't but I feel like now most of my friends, especially since many of them have been divorced, that's not shade, that's just the truth, I think they now feel differently, and I now we have much more open conversations about it. My queer friends, I feel like, have always been very supportive. 

Genevieve  25:50  

Yeah, it's so interesting that once the fairy tale is sort of like brought down to a bit more of a grounded place. I don't know, you know?

Ashtin Berry  25:59  

Well yeah, I feel like my friends who have been through divorces, and my friends who, unfortunately for some of them, due to their circumstances, have become single parents. Now, I don't really think that my me wanting to engage in relationship anarchy is wild, and it sucks that it takes, like, honestly, traumatic experiences, because divorce is traumatic, so does becoming a single parent, if that wasn't your plan, right? Both of those things are traumatic. It's such that it takes that for people to maybe consider there are other ways to be in relationship.

Ishik  26:39  

Hey everybody, we absolutely hope you've been enjoying Season Two of I Could Never and we are super excited to keep bringing you more great episodes of the show, which is why we will be doing an extra special mid season q&a episode this coming week. So if you've had a question that you have just been burning to ask us, now is your chance send us an email with a few sentences to icouldneverpod@gmail.com we will be open to submissions until end of day, Sunday, April 6, once again, that's icouldneverpod@gmail.com and we're excited to answer your questions. Talk to you then.

Genevieve  27:20  

You've written posts before about compulsory monogamy, for anyone that that is like a new idea, they've never heard that term before. What does that mean to you?

Ashtin Berry  27:32  

I would define compulsory monogamy is being committed to a relationship structure, not people. And I would say the same about compulsory heteros. Heterosexuality, it's defaulting to a structure, not your needs or who you are. It's going on autopilot, yeah, like, I am mostly heterosexual. Said how I want to say that I'm like, but I think, I think, like, for instance, I remember, it was my dear friend Irene. They said to me that, you know, when we were at a bar, they were like, are you actually straight, or is it that you've only ever dated men, and therefore you default that you are straight? And I was like, Well, I've only dated men. And they were like, Yeah, but is that a conversation about your comfortability or your sexuality, and then they said to me, is that a conversation about your performance of gender? And I think the latter is what really spoke to me, because, like my mom was a sexual educator, so people have been waiting for me to come out my entire life, so that, you know, all of my friends were gay growing up, like, I've had so many friends start coming out to me since, literally, the age of 12, that everybody just was like, clearly, she's going to be a lesbian. And I, you know, and so, and I was, like, a feminist before the age you're supposed to be a feminist. I think some of it was that, like, let me, let me just say that for anybody who hasn't seen me doesn't know what I look like. I like, I have the privilege that I don't have to identify. I can fluently move through queer, black, hetero, traditional spaces of all sorts, right? Unless it's the KKK. But like other than that, I can freely move through space, and so I don't have to, and that's a privilege, and that privilege afforded me for years, a for me to not have to be self aware on another level in my former dismissal of the need to investigate, those things were actual barriers to me being able To have more fulfilling relationships with people who maybe I wouldn't have considered in the past. 

Genevieve  29:45  

After that conversation with your friend, did you start looking at people differently? Did you take like a woman on a date? Or what happened for you after that talk?

Ashtin Berry  29:54  

I was still engaged. I was still going back and forth with this man at the time. So. Though I immediately did not investigate it, but what happened was that I had someone who was a friend. When I brought this conversation up, they were very adamant that they wanted to date, which kind of took me for a loop. We've been friends for like years, and you've never mentioned this, right? And so we went on a date, and I was like, I had fun, but I was just like, I just wasn't attracted to them like that, right? But I had fun. And a different friend challenged me on for a month to just be open to all types of dates. They were like, just be open. And I was very upfront with people like, Hey, I just want to let you know I'm dating for fun. I'm also dating to, like, really take myself out of this box of making an assumption about, like, these things. And I just want to make sure you know that and that you're okay with that. And a lot of people are like, yeah, right. And I, like, met cool friends, like, one of these people is, like, now, really, a really great friend. 

Genevieve  31:05  

Yeah, I think that's another benefit of trying to not get locked into a relationship has to look a certain way. Is that we meet in one premise on a date. It's like, that's not really the shape, but you're great. Let's not throw this out, you know, and make great friends that way, right?

Ashtin Berry  31:20  

You know, my most romantic relationships are my friendships. They're not sexual, but they are incredibly romantic. 

Genevieve  31:27  

A lot of times people get confused, or they're like, How can a “platonic” connection be romantic? Do you have examples of like, how that looks, or what romance in friendship means to you?

Ashtin Berry  31:41  

I tell people all the time, are we talking about romance, or are we talking about sex? Are we talking about the consumer product of romance, or are we talking about the emotional transmission of care, right? And I think for many people, many people can't define romance in the same ways that before hooks many people could not define love, just like many people before Audre Lorde could not define self care. And so I think when people hear something like, my friendships are the most romantic. I think people invoke the rituals of foreplay, of and when I say foreplay, I'm not just talking about touching each other. I'm talking about the long foreplay of flirting, of going on dates and everything the candles. That's what people invoke in their mind when they think of romance. And my question to people is that actually romance?

Genevieve  32:35  

And it's interesting too, because, like, the idea of romance only being applied to a sexual partner, but then plenty of people are fine having a non romantic sexual partner, friends with benefits and like separating them in that situation. But why wouldn't we separate romance as like a non sexual romance? You know, it's the same, it's the same. It's the inversion of it a bit.

Ashtin Berry  33:00  

I have to actually thank my friend Rebecca for her calling me in about how black women relationships specifically are so romantic, the way that we, like, care for one another and love love on one another. Like, how often do black women go out and people are like, are y'all celebrating some? What are y'all doing? Like, What are y'all? And it's like, black women being like, it's Thursday. I'm with my girls, yeah, well, my girls, right? Like, what do you what do you mean? Like, it's Thursday, and one of my friends and we just did it this first time this year, and it felt really good, and I hope we make it a ritual. But she was like, I want to celebrate us. Let's start having friend anniversaries. Oh, and so, like, we had a friend anniversary, and I was like, people are like, are you on a day? Y'all are so cute together. And we're like, no, but isn't it romantic? Look how beautiful this is. Um, those things are romantic. And I see it all time. Like one of the things that I love about Tiktok is watching how people who are in love with their friends, and not in a sexual way, but like in love with their friends the way that they care for each other. How is that not romantic?

Genevieve  34:12  

I know, I know there's so many ways that a friendship can look.

Ishik  34:16  

So when you're building friendships without being locked into this mindset of kind of a more traditional, more restrictive idea of how friendships can look. Do you have conversations with your friends about how you want things to operate? How do those conversations go?

Ashtin Berry  34:35  

I think a great example is one of my relationship with what like one of my longest guy friends. He makes a ton of money. When I started practicing relationship and our game, we said, And it came to the financial part, he was like, I don't think you should ever pay when we go out. He's like, nothing you don't do well, you know what I mean. But he's like, you know, relative, I make tons of money. He gets it.

Ishik  34:58  

We were literally just. Talking about this. She, you had written a thing.

Genevieve  35:02  

Yeah I've, I've been talking about this recently because I actually had a friendship end, because she didn't get it in that way, especially when it comes to, like, class and like, she made like six figures in this sales job, and she was dating a low income teacher, and she got him this $700 chair, you know, for as a gift, and he took her out to dinner. And that was proportionate. In my opinion. I'm like, he did a loving thing for you. You did a loving thing for him. But every time they had an argument, she was like, You gave me $11 pasta. I gave you a $700 chair. And she was so angry at that. And I was like, I think I need to fully pull away people in my life that aren't willing to do what the guy you were just describing did, which is, like, actually, critically, name the power imbalances, yeah.

Ashtin Berry  35:51  

And also, I feel for her, because, like, what an ungracious life, right? Yeah, right. Like, what a like, what a what like, her life must be very isolating to not be able to see people try to give from what they've got and only see the number, right? That's I pity, but I pity, I pity people. I pity people in that position, right? And this, that's why I tell people that if you date someone, make sure that they're generous, yeah. 

Genevieve  36:23  

How do you spot generosity in the people you're getting close to?

Ashtin Berry  36:26  

Not tallying, not score keeping? Yeah? Yeah, people who you know, I know I talked about documenting and record keeping, but documenting record keeping, for in my relationships, is a form of accountability for me to be able to make sure that, like I'm remaining in step with the things that people said that they need. It's not tally. You said this. I said this. You did this. I did this. People who are generous are people who know that we sometimes fall into patterns or cycles or do things that are not loving, not because we do not care for people, but because we are still working and growing as humans. But your people who are generous also actually give. I think many people are transactional. They say that they're giving, but they have an expectation that they get something back, whether it's tangible or intangible. People who are generous, give without expectation. And I tell people all the time, how people treat you in those first kind of first moments when you're dating someone or becoming their friend is generally so telling right about what they value, right and not just what they value, just on a larger format, but what they value in you, you know?

Genevieve  37:45  

I'm curious, like, so with this person that was like, I should have been volunteering. I should be paying. Was there additional conversation around, like, how to not attach strings to that, or was that just easy to do? 

Ashtin Berry  38:02  

Yeah. Like, we had a conversation at first, and I was kind of like, I want to talk about what this means. Because one, like, what does this look like if we go out with other people? You know what I mean? Like, I was like, you know, is it just when we're together, or when it got other people, blah, blah and like, how would his romantic partners feel about that, right? And so we had conversations like that. And once we had those conversations, I was like, You're not going to come back one day and throw this in my face. He was like, No. And if I do, like, cuss me the out, like, you know, but like, we had that conversation, and we from there, it was, like, easy and like, one of the things that we, like, I also believe in, and that, like, I've talked about with a lot of my like, most intimate circles, is I do believe in micro reparations. One of the reasons why he wanted to do it wasn't for, like, repayment, but we've known each other for a long time, and he was like, you've invested in so much in my emotional growth, like he was, like, I think it's wowed that with this power dynamic and the labor that you've done, that I would even consider it anything to show up in this way. 

Genevieve  39:10  

Yeah, so it sounds like there's also a conscious naming of even if labor isn't compensated, like, even if you don't earn money from this, you know, emotional support. He's still valuing it as a contribution to the relationship, right? Yeah, I think a lot of times, especially people who are higher earners, financially like don't always connect those dots.

Ishik  39:44  

Do you feel like there is a difference in how relationship anarchy is perceived in New Orleans versus by comparison to, like any of the other places you've lived?

Ashtin Berry  39:55  

So I think in general, like a lot of people, just don't know about relationship anarchy. Like, unless you're in specific spaces, people just don't know what it is. So you're always going to be on this, like, place of explaining to people. I think in New Orleans, I'm just considered like, people know, I'm not from New Orleans, they look at me and they're like, she not from here, right? The way I dress, the way I look, the gay septum. You know what I mean? Those are all things that people go you know? But I think one I don't really date New Orleans. New Orleans is, like, not a great place to date, no matter who you are. It's just not a great place to date. And part of it is like, people get married young, a lot of people are already in committed relationships, have kids, all of that. You know what I mean, like by the time they're in their early 30s. So it's not the best place to be single and to try to in your like 30s, try to date regardless of what you're trying to do, even if you're looking for something more traditional in terms of like exploring relationship anarchy here. Ciao, don't nobody need that type of stress in their life. Yeah, I'm saying, Don't nobody need that type of stress in their life. 

Ishik  41:09  

Yeah, no, so you just don't even bring it up? You're just like, I'm not even talking about this with my neighbors. I don't say shit about nothing.

Ashtin Berry  41:14  

I talk about it with my friends here, for sure. But outside of it, I mean, I had a man hitting on me last night. I was at this event. Afterwards, we all went for a drink, and he was like, when I said, like, oh, I don't want to be married, somebody was like, oh, yeah, you decide that people need to wife up. And I was like, oh, please never. Don't threaten me. I didn't come here for violence, right? Please offend me, um, and he was like, wait what? And I was like, Yeah, I had never want to be married. He was like, Okay, those concepts were already so, like, wowed for him, like he was already like, that was already a lot. So like for me to have tried to like this man trying to engage me, saying he, like, thinks I'm cool. Want to date me and me to be like, Oh, and also I press up relationship anarchy, like he probably would have been like.

Genevieve  42:09  

Like, disassociated?

Ashtin Berry  42:12  

Yeah. So it's just like, for the most part, and I'm not saying that there's nobody here that like I could possibly, I'm sure there are, but for the most part, it's just not the place.

Ishik  42:22  

If you're not interested or looking to really date locally. How do you primarily try dating? Like? Do you do like? Online dating? Do you date when you travel? Like, how do you meet people?

Ashtin Berry  42:34  

Online dating? Oh, God. Talk about hell. Um, I like the old fashioned way. You remember when friends used to introduce you to people? Oh, you know, let me see your picture. Isn't you thinking cute? I think y'all will get along. Y'all should go on a date. That's the way I like, right? You know, I've told people I'm like, I'm I'm interested in dating. I'm just saying, if you meet anybody, let me know. That's one way. I have met a lot of people in the airport. I have strangely met. So like sitting at an airport bar, go to a good bar in the airport. Y'all having a drink, get in the conversation, exchange info. Oh, okay, I dated a person for a little minute. That's how we met. We met in the airport, and then we, like, dated, dated, we ended up dating for a while. So, yeah, I mean, you can pick up anybody, anywhere, if you're not afraid to talk to people. And do, I always want to talk to people. No, like, sometimes I want to go and I want to be to myself and I bring my book or whatever and everything like that. But like, the art of being able to, like, go mingle, talk, make friends with people around the bar, open up so many opportunities really quick. 

Ishik  43:42  

Going back to this idea of kind of tapping your community to form new connections, right? We've definitely talked about the idea of engaging in community in the past on the show, and whenever we do, we'll often get questions, you know, how to become a part of community, how to build community? And for a lot of the time, you know, we'll hear suggestions like, go talk to your neighbor, right? I think we've even said the same thing, and I don't know that that is landing for people like, I feel like.

Ashtin Berry  44:15  

No, because they think, they think that they they keep trying to translate it, and we mean literally, go talk to your damn neighbor, yeah, like the number of times I teach a workshop and I say, How many people know everybody on their block? And only three people raise their hands and I say, you want me to believe you can do community and you don't even know everybody on your damn block? First of all, let me just say, as a black person, that's just not safe. Let's talk about a basis of safety, right? But I think the question that I asked in workshops, why don't you know your neighbor's name, and don't lie to me and tell me it's because you haven't had the opportunity, is that you haven't made the opportunity. And then I have another question, why do you lack the curiosity of. Your neighbors. And I think this goes back to the conversation about community is inconvenient, and so I think for people wondering, but I do really want community. Community takes risk. I talked about this in my in the caption of my post yesterday, I said, I said, one of the reasons that I think people are they say they want intimacy, they say they want intimacy, but everything that they do leans towards ease, right? And that's because ease requires very little risk. Ease is approachable. Ease allows you to predict inconvenience. Doesn't do that. Things pop up in life, they derail you. There's thing and that requires labor, but it also requires risk. You have to risk possibly getting your feelings hurt. You have to risk being in situations that are uncomfortable. You have to risk awkwardness. You have to risk not knowing. You have to risk conflict. To knock on the door and say, Hey, you're being kind of loud. Do you mind turning it down? Also, my name is and I live right? I tell people all behind if you would call the police rather than knock on your neighbor's door because of a noise complaint, you aren't safe. You call the cops because you simply couldn't be bothered. You know, and I think, is it that you've never had opportunities for community, or is it that you've marked yourself unsafe for community? There is a cultural and communication style to community. I do need to say that to people. And so if you ever are trying to engage people, and you keep hitting a wall. I want to be clear to you that sometimes that's because of your cultural the way you are showing up, culturally and communication wise, are not in alignment with the community. The greatest example I can give is when I moved to New Orleans years ago, I had to really check myself. Not only does have a very specific culture, native New Orleans have a very specific trauma that is theirs, right? And you know, when I got here, I had to learn that the my pacing was very disruptive to people being able to trust me. I moved too fast. Everything I did was too fast. And not only did was did everything I was doing it fast. There was an assumption, because of I was young, I was very accoladed already when I got here the position I was in in this industry, there were, at the time, very few black people, let alone a black woman, people also had concerns about that. And so there was this distrust. And at first I had this kind of, like, really, black people were going to do this, you're going to side eye me. But then I had to, like, I had to get called in, you know? And this is what community's for, right and what? Who told you you are entitled to trust right? It is my job to reassure them through my actions about why they don't need to be apprehensive about me. And through time, I learned that, but part of that was I had to shift so that they could better understand me. So, yeah, I think those, those are things I think about. I wrote a post about how to build community. It's on my page. It's pinned. Go look at it. It's at the collectors. And I think one of the things that people need to really switch and click in their mind is that keep hearing people say, I want to find community. You can't find community. You build community. And one of the reasons why you can't find it is because you keep acting as if it's something you go to the store and you're letting your capitalistic internalization treat it as a consumer product rather than something you have to build. You have to be a community member in order to have community you can't find something you don't participate in. There's people in my community I can't stand I ain't gonna say no names, but there's one I live three doors down. I can't stand her, but she is a part of my community. 

Ishik  49:13  

Well, I happen to know she does listen to the podcast.

Ashtin Berry  49:18  

And you know what? If I see her package on her doorstep, I pick it up for if I see something look strange around her house, I text him, right? And there's an old white man that literally look around the corner down the street with a true I'm sorry he be making his face, and I look him in the eye every damn morning, I say, Good morning while I walk my dog. Do I get on this nurse? I'm sure I do. And if you don't like it, his ass can move. But yeah, I think, like, obviously, if it's unsafe, like, let's use some discernment, folks. And also, like, even if this is someone you don't want to be a community member, you let them know that your body deserves to take up space. And that is, in itself, a radical act. I you know, I just want to say as one last piece, and I'll bring it back to it. I think that this community piece has me thinking about divorce. I know you're like, why community divorce? Because I think, like, even within people who are committed to monogamy, I think one of the reasons why divorce is so prevalent is because people don't have community. They have marriage. They don't have community.

Genevieve  50:27  

Yeah, the isolation of the nuclear family is very normalized. 

Ashtin Berry  50:31  

Yeah, I don't know if y'all saw this on Tiktok, but like last year on Tiktok, it started with a white black person being like, white people was the one question you always wanted to ask black people, you know. I mean, like, we gonna let y'all ask y'all one question, and then to like, you know, black people, what's the question you only always want to ask white people? And this black person was like, Y'all got cousins black people like you right? Because I never met a white person's cousin. And it started this whole chain of white people being like, I have cousins, but like, I don't really talk to them. And it was this very cultural different. And I think it was funny because Mexicans in their chat, they was like, Yeah, we got cousins. And then they showing their like, whole families, you know? But I think, like, when specifically people are like, oh, like, do you have community? And like, is your nuclear family isolated? And if so, why? Right? I think like, that's where people can start, right?

Ishik  51:40  

Ashtin, thank you so much for joining us. I would love to invite you to plug any thing that you're working on, any upcoming projects, anything that you want to share with listeners. 

Genevieve  51:50  

Yeah, where can people find you? 

Ashtin Berry  51:52  

You could find me on Instagram @thecollectress, that's really the only place. And I don't have anything coming up. I don't have anything coming up until like, end of next year. So as of now, that's it.

Ishik  52:07  

So stay tuned, everyone, @thecollectress, and I'll do a personal plug of it. Everything that she writes is awesome. It is really incredibly if it's not clear from this interview, this is incredibly thought provoking stuff and incredibly prolific. If I can just say you are prolific and dense, yes, prolific and dense. Like, talk about, like, that's why I writer was the first thing it's it's impressive to me. It's very impressive.

Ashtin Berry  52:33  

Thank you. I appreciate that so much that it warms my heart.

Ishik  52:39  

Well, it feeds all of us so but in addition to that, if you are looking for more polyamory or non monogamy, content, Genevieve, as always, is on Tiktok and Instagram at chill polyamory. She's also on YouTube at chill polyamory, where she discusses non monogamy in film and TV.

Genevieve  52:57  

So you can support those projects and this podcast directly on Patreon, where you'll get early access to videos, private stories, live question and answers and one on one, peer support options. So that's patreon.com/chillpolyamory.

Ishik  53:09  

And for our listeners, remember that just because you've never done something before doesn't mean that you can't do that. Bye.